Helper awards contract for next phase of system rebuild

The Helper City Council Thursday awarded the contract for Area 4 of its infrastrure rebuilding to low bidder Terry Larsen Excavating of Utah County.

The firm had submitted a bid of $3,527,000. The bid is about $700,000 higher than anticipated in the original estimates, engineers from Franson Civil Engineers told the council.

As with the plan for Area 1, which was also higher than planned, the engineers will be working the city's utility departments to revise some aspects, according to Eric Franson and Chad Brown of Franson.

Area 4 is the neighborhood around Helper Junior High School, west of of US-6.

The engineers were confident that the entire project can be completed within its $19.5 million budget. They said this can be done without compromising the integrity of the culinary water, sewer and storm water systems.

For example, the Castle Gate subdivision has a much newer sewer system that the 70-year old parts elsewhere in Helper. That means only culinary and storm system construction will probably be necessary.

It may also be possible to lump all of next year's phases into a single contract.

Meanwhile, Condie Construction, which has the contract for Area 1, will begin on or about April 15. This area is basically central Helper east of the highway except for Main Street.

Condie will be working shifts of four 10-hour days. This should make it easier to accommodate the needs of the Arts and Music Festival in August.